Je Regrette

“I’M a man first,” says Zinedine Zidane. “I would rather have taken a punch in the jaw than be insulted in that way.”

And in what way was he insulted? Why, Macro Materazzi, the scumbag, insulted ZZ’s dear old mum. He called her all manner of names and what with her feeling proper poorly it was too much for the player to bear.

“I can’t regret what I did because it would mean he was right to say what he said…He said some very nasty words about my mother and my sister,” says ZZ in the Mirror.

Fair enough. But what did the Italian say to excite Zidane’s inner martial artist?
(We are informed that rather than missing the Italian’s jaw, as some writers have suggested, Zidane was displaying his working knowledge of the French savate martial art, as seen in the film Les Enfants du Paradis and on the streets of his native Marseilles.)

Zidane does not tell the world what Materazzi called his mum and sister – “not once, twice, but three times.” So leaving us at the mercy of the lip reading profession, for whom these are heady times.

But they can’t seem to agree. He called him “the son of a terrorist whore,” says one. “I wish an ugly death to you and your sister,” says another. The Sun says “top lip-reader” Marianne Fere sees Materazzi tell Zidane, a high ball is “not for feccia [scum] like you”.

Another sees a fat little bloke in a Crystal Palace kit dash down the terraces and call Zidane a “French w****r”.

The next instalment of Lip Readers Monthly promises to be a bumper issue.

But until we get a definitive reading, or Zidane tells us what went on, we may never know what was said.

But at least we can now hear the players talking. And while Zidane says “The guilty man was the man who provoked what I did”, the Sun hears Materazzi answer his critics.

“I didn’t insult his mother,” says he. “I lost my mother when I was 15 years old and still get emotional about it.” He continues: “Zidane is my hero and I have always admired him a lot” – which may suggest there was more to that tweaked nipple than mere male bonding.

But while the protagonists make claim and counterclaim, and France and Italy make ready for war, Zidane says he has one regret: “It was watched by two billion people and by millions of kids. I’m sorry for that.”

To say nothing of the kids’ dear old mums…

Posted: 13th, July 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink